Covid 19 has brought tremendous changes in our lifestyle. Same applies to sales & marketing world too. Everything changed into virtual platform, from meeting client to hosting meeting. This lead to the increase in the use of email and as a marketer many opted to email marketing campaign to promote their products & services without any geographical barrier. Increase in data collection & consumption had led to know about data privacy laws established to protect customers.
Though there are plenty of global anti-spam laws, in this blog we will discuss about more about the CAN SPAM Act, which is considered to be a major law in the USA. If you want to understand about the CAN SPAM Act & how it applies to email marketers, then you’re at right place.
What is the CAN SPAM Act?
The acronym CAN SPAM stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-solicited Pornography & Marketing”. This is a US law that was put into place in the year 2003. It aims at commercial messages & gives recipients the right to have stopped emailing them. And at the same time tough penalties can be claimed by consumers in violation. Hope now you might have guessed it right why B2B marketers are deceptive when sending commercial emails. Marketers must provide a way to opt out & that request must be closed with minimum period of time. This law applies to email marketing & any other form of digital communication.
CAN SPAM Act makes way for consumers to move freely without any barrier in finding the actual & other important emails under the pile of commercials obviously which they don’t have interest in.
With the consistent efforts of B2B email marketers now we have best practices that encompass the requirements of CAN SPAM & other SPAM laws including CASL , The SPAM Act & more. The main aspects of focusing on creating such engaging relationship with prospects or customers are to drive better sales & improve revenue.
Always avoid Phony Information:
All the information around your header must identify or recognise you as the sender without any further clarification or queries. This is applicable for “from”, “To”, and “Reply-To” section. You should never ever pretend an email is from a person’s friend or sound like you’re only pitching service. It is unethical and illegal if you misrepresent yourself to the recipient.
Have a strong subject line:
Have a strong thumb rule your subject line should never be duplicitous. For instance, you can’t have subject line a “Get your free iPhone” then failed to have anything related to the iphone is considered as cheating in order to have a high open rate. This is completely related to the body of the email misleading. You can create a cheeky subject line if you make a specific claim.
Be Open:
As a B2B marketer you must be open to tell the recipient that your mail is an ad and it is shared across all digital communication mediums. This guards companies from other third parties or influencers who recommend a company’s products or services.
With proper header and footer information along with your company logo should be well enough to let your readers that your email will have CAN SPAM compliant.
All your email must have company’s address:
Having company’s information is always a best practice & builds strong trust with prospects or customers. While is can be included in any part of the email, it is good to or nice to have it at the bottom of your logo or rest of your footer.
Sharing address is completely up to you, it can be a street address or private mailbox. This guideline is one of the important points of CAN SPAM act, identify must be transparent who sells a product online.
Always include unsubscribe option to your emails:
According to the CAN SPAM Act, all your email must include detailed information on how the recipient can opt out. It can be of button, link or any alternate email address to which recipient can send opt out request.
For any email marketing program, it is better to have small & an active mailing list than larger one. Having the unsubscribe option to your emails can be beneficial & keeps you in CAN SPAM compliant.
Never send email to opt out customers:
Keeping someone in your mailing list not interested in your products/services or unsubscribed is highly disrespectful & not proper ethics to do business. CAN SPAM act not only helps marketers in obeying the regulation or keep you compliant, it also strengthens your email marketing program & improves brand identity.
2019 CAN SPAM Act Changes:
This CAN SPAM act remains unchanged for 16 years, 2019 few changes have been bought in the way people communicate online and in email marketing programs with concern for data privacy. With trust & transparency you can build long lasting business relationship with your consumers.
Conclusion:
Email marketing is all about building relationship with leads, prospects and customers. It is a golden opportunity in connecting with customers directly through their inbox at any time, which is highly convenient for them. This is an important reason why email marketing is considered as highly interacting and impactful marketing among all channels. To adhere to CAN SPAM best practice, you need to know about below mentioned things:
- Never lie in your email header
- Make a strong subject line
- Make sure you that you send ads through your email id
- Always include your company’s address
- Have unsubscribe option in all your email
- You’re responsible for sending any mail under your brand identity.